Pravda – the truth is in the name

Although many students in Warwick are inclined to complain about the location of our campus and the lack of nearby amenities, what you cannot complain about is the abundance of high quality theatres and their wealth of acting talent – the Loft Theatre is no different.

It is the opening night of Pravda – a take on the 1980’s newspaper industry – and time to see whether Gordon Vallins has done Howard Brenton and David Hare’s satirical Fleet Street comedy justice. Pravda is both the Russian word for truth and, until 1991, the name of the leading newspaper in the Soviet Union – a paper that was noted as being highly propagandist and economic with ‘the truth’. This word, along with its English translation, was given centre stage under a magnifying glass on the floor prior to the actors coming on. It was the first sight that greeted the audience and would be one to stay with them until the curtain call.

Pravda is a play of its time with obvious references to Thatcherism, but it is also a play of our time, as it has as much to do with our society as it does with 80s Britain. It is an exploration of journalism and its place in society which, in the wake of the post-Leveson enquiry, News of the World demise and phone hacking saga, makes this play chillingly more relevant than ever as politics and the media still feel the ripple effects.

Projected onto the back wall was effective visual imagery that not only instantly transported its viewers from the office to the streets, but became as much a part of the play as its fictional characters. The audience were always taken from past to present, which reminded its viewers of the play’s relevancy in current society.

The play’s Murdoch’esque character came in the form of the South African media mogul Lambert Le Roux. It is Le Roux who will stand in the centre of the magnifying glass at the end of the play – the staging of which leads us to question what his part is in establishing the truth. He is the ever present person, Pravda’s driving force. His character is equally detestable as it is empathetic; we come to laugh at him, his straightforward frankness cuts through the theatre. David Pinner makes him out to be both larger than life and in a sense human. This is a gentle reminder, that it is far too easy to demonise people, especially using media, to turn them into caricatures and spitting image puppets. What this play and its cast have done so well is to layer responsibility so we are left uncertain of who should be answering for what claims.

Unnervingly, it was often the characters that we think we ought to relate to the least that seemed the most real, rather than those who were dogged by the need to perpetuate a notion of the media as upholders of the truth. A feeling that could challenge our own certainty in identifying and pertaining to the truth.

The internal monologues projected to the audience, often by Pinner, allowed moments for reflection while the speaker attempted his own version of a Hamlet soliloquy. Its office scenes conjured up images of The Thick of It in their sense of humour and in the dynamism of the characters who stormed across the floor demanding and cowering in equal measure.

James Wolstenholme was another of a number of notable performances. He played an opportunistic Australian who was Le Roux’s devil’s advocate, and injected humour into the otherwise dry duty he held of handling the South African’s financial transactions.

At the end Le Roux declares, ‘I pose a question. I am the question’. This play leaves us with questions, not conclusions; it reaches out to the audience, leaving them wriggling uncomfortably in their seats as they reflect upon the thought that there may be no definitive answer. The stage becomes a claustrophobic space in the cyclical rise and fall of writer, editor and politician, bridges are constantly burned and the concept of free speech regularly questioned. The influence of capitalism and money is the only constant.

Pravda is a tragic comedy, with huge and often contrasting personalities. As a budding journalist this doesn’t make for uplifting viewing, you see your future laid out in front of you and it is ugly. Comedy is key to this play, if we could not laugh at these characters and their actions then we would simply sigh. Luckily this was realised by the audience, who regularly laughed through this tragedy of mistrust and misdemeanor.